Well this is a subject many of us feel pretty strongly about that is for sure. What I think some at Stern are missing is that often players that play on location look for fun and complete code now days. The Pinball community has changed dramatically in the past 5 years and many that play on location are not just casual players some actually own pins. So no matter if it's in a home or on location fun & complete code encourages people to pay to play and/or possibly buy a pin from your company in the future.

Many of us know it can be frustrating to buy a pin for 4700-7800 and have to wait a year or longer to get complete/polished code. Kiss sold well and although there has been updates provided it still feels a long way from how fun it could be with well thought out complete code. I am a big fan of Stern and it does seem like they are becoming more committed to providing us fans with well designed complete code. That is a good thing! Please know that while many of us would like some things improved we are still fans/buyers. We are not against you we are with you.

I agree it has gotten better and GOT is ahead of schedule compared to many other releases. I hope Stern stays committed to providing solid code for their pins. I don't mind waiting months for a game to get to a point where it feels like it has a complete rule set. It's in the six months to a year range in which I would say it is taking too long to get to buyers of these pins.

Sometimes it's easy to focus on the negative things especially on a forum like this. Overall this thread is a positive thing it demonstrates that Stern knows we care about the code on our pins and are dedicated to updating/finishing code on all their new releases. I'm glad Stern is making an effort not only to put out awesome code but also communicate with the community to let us know that it's important to them because they know it's important to us.

Perhaps it's different where you live but where I do a lot of pinheads play location games and even have leagues on location. I'd argue that if the pinheads did not go out n play location pins in some locations there would be little use of actually routing pins there. Code does matter on location pins IMO.

I don't buy it man. If serious pinballers did not play his or location machines operators would see a noticeable loss in profit. No real way to prove either view point so I guess we'd just be talking in circles. I respect everyone's opinions even if I disagree though.

I agree. What I disagreed with is that pinball fans don't play on location and code did not matter. If I think code stinks on a certain pin I will not spend a dime on it in the wild. So while code will encourage pinball addicts to pay to play or even buy the pin I don't think having good code will deter a casual player from playing. What I was getting at is having solid code on pins even in the wild can only help and not hurt.

While I agree an update to clear up small bugs is needed I must say XM has one of the best deep rule sets out there.

image.jpeg

I think this played a huge role in why XM was poorly received. I bought an XM Pro early on and the code it shipped with made the pin pretty much unplayable. That and all the hardware issues the LEs had. If it shipped with solid code and no hardware issues I think they would of sold enough to warrant running a Premium model. Cool theme and fun layout/design. It was a real shame and missed opportunity IMO. Code ended up being awesome and fit the theme perfectly but boy did it take a long time to get there.

I believe supplying solid code on all current releases is important and will become even more important to sales in the future. Pin makers today seem to understand this and that is exactly why time and resources are dedicated solely to code fun/complete games.

I don't think today's market is anything like the market of the past. In the past it may have been mostly 'hard core' players that cared about the code. However, in today's market dominated by home use machines when owners dedicate so much money on a pin they want to be wowed and they notice when something is lacking. Perhaps dedicating so much $ to pins for our homes in itself makes us 'hard core' fans/addicts